Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Hoorcollege 1: introductie
Persuasive communication: a sender’s attempt to change a receiver’s beliefs, attitudes, and
behavior.
- Broader than marketing communication (you also use it with friends, colleagues, etc.)
- The foundation of most marketing communication
Marketing communication is persuasive communication but also has other functions
(grabbing attention, branding, consumer choice behavior, targeting strategy, etc.).
Persuasion: application ares
Corporate sphere: marketing communication, sales/negotiations,
motivating/leadership, online campaigns/infuencers.
Public sphere: health communication and politics (societal debates).
Individual sphere: relationships, education and family life.
Persuasive communication and the scientific approach: why do we need persuasive
communication?
People often do not understand their own beliefs, attitudes and behavioral motives.
We need objective evidence to understand why people change their behavior.
We get this evidence by asking and observing for example.
Example: are good-looking people in general smarter than unattractive people? (self-report).
Good looking people are seen as more intelligent, nicer, more outgoing.
They receive more positive responses and are perceived as more credible and
reliable.
This is why they are seen as more persuasive (and are better paid, have nicer jobs).
Halo-effect: good qualities get linked to good looking people.
We run experiments because:
We can manipulate the independent variable: good vs. bad looking.
We can measure its effects on the dependent variable(s): perceived intelligence.
We don’t do street surveys because probably there will not be found a relationship
between attractiveness and intelligence: people do not want to admit that they think
there is a relationship (social desirability).
Persuasion: a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to
change their attitudes or behavior regarding an issue trhough the transmission of a message,
in an atmosphere of free choice.
News can be just news or persuasion: news may influence attitudes but there is
usually no persuasive intent (thus no persuasion).
Hoorcollege 2: Attitudes and balance
The aspect of an atmosphere of free choice is really important when it comes to persuasion.
In case of unequal power/hierarchical contexts there is no free choice and thus no
persuasive communication.
Attitudes
Attitude: a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with
some degree of favor or disfavor (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). It is possible to have a neutral
attitude.
,Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Key characteristics of attitudes:
Tendency: longer than emotions, shorter than personality traits (if you have a
negative attitude towards something, it does not mean you are negative).
Learned: through experience or other.
Evaluative: it has a valence (positive-negative) and intensity (weak-strong).
Directed at an object: person, issue, group, etc.
Attitudes are (psychologically) useful and serve different functions:
(1) Knowledge function
Attitudes organize our thinking; make the world understandabe/predictable (we are
not constantly confused).
Attitudes help us predict how people will respond or how the situation will work out.
“Good guys vs. bad guys”: the attractive guy is the good guy and the unattractive guy
is the bad guy (halo-effect).
(2) Instrumental function
Attitudes and associated behavior will help obtaining positive outcomes.
Usually result from learning processes (reward and punishments); children develop
positive attitudes based on associated positive outcomes > developing a positive
attitude toward cleaning your room because afterwards you will get candy.
(3) Ego-defensive function
Attitudes help maintain a positive self-image; people think more positively about
themselves than about other people and to maintain such a high self-image we look
for negative things in other people (prejudice against immigrants for no good reason).
Ingroup vs. outgroup: negative attitudes toward other groups confirms own superiority
(expressed in group-thinking).
(4) Value-expressive function
People want to express their identity (if you do not have an attitude, how can you
express values?).
Attitudes help to express central values and obtain social approval.
(5) Social adjustment function
People like others with similar beliefs; we see ourselves in them.
Expressed attitudes helps in forming or maintaining (or blocking!) relationships (when
people agree with you, you form a relationship. But when people disagree with you,
you take distance from them).
Expectancy-value approach (Fishbein & Ajzen)
Attitude = strength of beliefs * evaluations of these beliefs.
- Beliefs about object X
- Strength of beliefs about object X
- Evaluations of beliefs about object X
The strength of beliefs has to do with accessibility (the first thing that pops up in your head),
personal importance of the belief, personal importance of the attitude object, certainty of the
belief, etc. There are several things that determine the strength of your belief.
Hoorcollege 3: Cognitive dissonance
Balance theory (Heider). The theory is about keeping your attitude
and beliefs in balance. The figure shows imbalance; only triangles
with 0 or 2 minuses are “in balance”. There are ways to reduce
imbalance:
Denial: denying the problem (it doesn’t really happen or at least it is not that bad).
,Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Bolstering/compensation: adding positive elements (the car breaks, but it is so nice).
Differentiation: you differentiate aspects of the object (it is not the whole camper but
only the motor; you make the problem tinier).
Integration/transcendence: accepting the problem (it is just the way it is).
Cognitive dissonance (Festinger) – how people persuade themselves:
Deals with relations between cognitive elements (attitudes, beliefs, behavior).
Three possbile relations:
- Irrelevant: two things that are not
related.
- Consonant: two believes or thoughts
that are in line with each other.
- Dissonant: you think two things that
do not match or believe two things that
are dissonant.
There are some assumptions about cognitive dissonance:
Poeple do not like inconsistent cognitions (Balance Theory).
Dissonance is an aversive state.
People are motivated to reduce dissonance.
Degree of cognitive dissonance =
Dissonance can be resolved in different ways:
Example: the corona measures prevent the spread of the virus – corona measures
make my life miserable.
1. The importance of the dissonant cognitions can be reduced: corona measures
prevent the spread of the virus, but maybe te virus should be allowed to spread a little bit.
2. Dissonant cognitions can be changed: I don’t believe corona measures help to
prevent the spread of the virus.
3. Consonant cognitions can be added: corona measures give governments control over
their populations; the media are trying tos care us; the virus is not so dangerous.
4. Importance of consonant cognitions can be increased: freedom.
Cognitive dissonance has different areas of application:
(1) Decision making: choice behavior/rationalization
Dissonance is a post-decision phenomenon: happens after you have made a
decision.
The more similar the alternatives, the more dissonance you experience.
Dissonance is greatest just after the choice.
Dissonance can be reduced after decision making by ‘spreading of alternatives’:
evaluating the alternative more negatively and the chosen option more positively.
(2) Mass communication: selective exposure
Selective exposure hypothesis:
- People seek information that confirms their attitudes.
- People avoid information that contradicts their attitudes.
- Klapper (1960): minimal effects of mass media through selective exposure?
Selective exposure may subsequently determine attitudes and behavior.
Sweeney & Gruber (research to Watergate and Nixon vs. McGovern supporters.
(3) Marketing: induced compliance
, Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959): what happens to a person’s attitude if that person has
to engage in behavior that goes against this attitude?
Participants perform a very tedious/boring task. 1/3 gets $1, 1/3 gets $20 to explain to
others that the job is a lot of fun, and 1/3 doesn’t have to.
Result: paticipants in the $1 condition begin to rate the task more positively (attitude
change).
Explanation: $20 is a better excuse to lie than $1, $1 causes more dissonance, that
has to be reduced (negative reward effect).
Conclusion: the less justification provided for performing the counter-attitudinal
behavior, the more dissonance and the more attitude change.
Initiation: persons who undergo an unpleasant initiation to become members of a
group increase their liking fort he group; they find the group more attractive than do
persons who become members without going through a severe initiation.
Marketing: making products expensive and difficult to obtain on purpose.
(4) Business, policy: sunk costs
Sunk costs are costs that has been made and cannot be recovered.
Gambling on horses: right after placing the bet, people overestimate chances of
winning (more than before). The idea that money was wrongly invested creates
dissonance.
Throwing bad money after good money (Concorde effect). This often happens with
infrastructural projects. People stick to loss-making stocks, because it has cost them
so much in the first place.
(5) Sex education & Hypocrisy induction
Stone et al., 1994: Safe Sex Information.
- 2 groups of students: (1) hypocrisy condition: speech about reasons for unsafe sex,
(2) control condition. Dependent variable: purchase of condoms. Dissonance was
created after a proattitudinal advocacy by inducing hypocrisy – having subjects
publicly advocate the importance of safe sex and then systematically making the
subjects mindful of their own past failures to use condoms.
- Results: students bought more often, and more condoms in the hypocrisy condition.
Hoorcollege 4: Attitudes and behavior
The goal of persuasive communication is to change attitudes and behavior. Does attitude
change lead to behavioral change? If we know why people have certain attitudes (functions
of attitudes), we can more easily influence their behavior. Persuaders have to match the
message to the function of the attitude people hold.
Voluntary service (Clary et al., 1994): people
had different attitude functions with regard to
voluntary service:
Knowledge: learning skills
Instrumental: prestige
Value-expressive: helping others
Ego-defensive: feeling good about yourself
Students first stated importance of the above reasons.
Independent variable: matched/mismatched video with persuasive message.
Dependent variable: intention to volunteer.
According to older scholars, attitudes do not predict behavior. An example for this is the
study by LaPiere with the Chinese people: Chinese people called a restaurant with the
question if Chinese people were welcome there. The restaurant workers said they were not
Hoorcollege 1: introductie
Persuasive communication: a sender’s attempt to change a receiver’s beliefs, attitudes, and
behavior.
- Broader than marketing communication (you also use it with friends, colleagues, etc.)
- The foundation of most marketing communication
Marketing communication is persuasive communication but also has other functions
(grabbing attention, branding, consumer choice behavior, targeting strategy, etc.).
Persuasion: application ares
Corporate sphere: marketing communication, sales/negotiations,
motivating/leadership, online campaigns/infuencers.
Public sphere: health communication and politics (societal debates).
Individual sphere: relationships, education and family life.
Persuasive communication and the scientific approach: why do we need persuasive
communication?
People often do not understand their own beliefs, attitudes and behavioral motives.
We need objective evidence to understand why people change their behavior.
We get this evidence by asking and observing for example.
Example: are good-looking people in general smarter than unattractive people? (self-report).
Good looking people are seen as more intelligent, nicer, more outgoing.
They receive more positive responses and are perceived as more credible and
reliable.
This is why they are seen as more persuasive (and are better paid, have nicer jobs).
Halo-effect: good qualities get linked to good looking people.
We run experiments because:
We can manipulate the independent variable: good vs. bad looking.
We can measure its effects on the dependent variable(s): perceived intelligence.
We don’t do street surveys because probably there will not be found a relationship
between attractiveness and intelligence: people do not want to admit that they think
there is a relationship (social desirability).
Persuasion: a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to
change their attitudes or behavior regarding an issue trhough the transmission of a message,
in an atmosphere of free choice.
News can be just news or persuasion: news may influence attitudes but there is
usually no persuasive intent (thus no persuasion).
Hoorcollege 2: Attitudes and balance
The aspect of an atmosphere of free choice is really important when it comes to persuasion.
In case of unequal power/hierarchical contexts there is no free choice and thus no
persuasive communication.
Attitudes
Attitude: a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with
some degree of favor or disfavor (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). It is possible to have a neutral
attitude.
,Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Key characteristics of attitudes:
Tendency: longer than emotions, shorter than personality traits (if you have a
negative attitude towards something, it does not mean you are negative).
Learned: through experience or other.
Evaluative: it has a valence (positive-negative) and intensity (weak-strong).
Directed at an object: person, issue, group, etc.
Attitudes are (psychologically) useful and serve different functions:
(1) Knowledge function
Attitudes organize our thinking; make the world understandabe/predictable (we are
not constantly confused).
Attitudes help us predict how people will respond or how the situation will work out.
“Good guys vs. bad guys”: the attractive guy is the good guy and the unattractive guy
is the bad guy (halo-effect).
(2) Instrumental function
Attitudes and associated behavior will help obtaining positive outcomes.
Usually result from learning processes (reward and punishments); children develop
positive attitudes based on associated positive outcomes > developing a positive
attitude toward cleaning your room because afterwards you will get candy.
(3) Ego-defensive function
Attitudes help maintain a positive self-image; people think more positively about
themselves than about other people and to maintain such a high self-image we look
for negative things in other people (prejudice against immigrants for no good reason).
Ingroup vs. outgroup: negative attitudes toward other groups confirms own superiority
(expressed in group-thinking).
(4) Value-expressive function
People want to express their identity (if you do not have an attitude, how can you
express values?).
Attitudes help to express central values and obtain social approval.
(5) Social adjustment function
People like others with similar beliefs; we see ourselves in them.
Expressed attitudes helps in forming or maintaining (or blocking!) relationships (when
people agree with you, you form a relationship. But when people disagree with you,
you take distance from them).
Expectancy-value approach (Fishbein & Ajzen)
Attitude = strength of beliefs * evaluations of these beliefs.
- Beliefs about object X
- Strength of beliefs about object X
- Evaluations of beliefs about object X
The strength of beliefs has to do with accessibility (the first thing that pops up in your head),
personal importance of the belief, personal importance of the attitude object, certainty of the
belief, etc. There are several things that determine the strength of your belief.
Hoorcollege 3: Cognitive dissonance
Balance theory (Heider). The theory is about keeping your attitude
and beliefs in balance. The figure shows imbalance; only triangles
with 0 or 2 minuses are “in balance”. There are ways to reduce
imbalance:
Denial: denying the problem (it doesn’t really happen or at least it is not that bad).
,Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Bolstering/compensation: adding positive elements (the car breaks, but it is so nice).
Differentiation: you differentiate aspects of the object (it is not the whole camper but
only the motor; you make the problem tinier).
Integration/transcendence: accepting the problem (it is just the way it is).
Cognitive dissonance (Festinger) – how people persuade themselves:
Deals with relations between cognitive elements (attitudes, beliefs, behavior).
Three possbile relations:
- Irrelevant: two things that are not
related.
- Consonant: two believes or thoughts
that are in line with each other.
- Dissonant: you think two things that
do not match or believe two things that
are dissonant.
There are some assumptions about cognitive dissonance:
Poeple do not like inconsistent cognitions (Balance Theory).
Dissonance is an aversive state.
People are motivated to reduce dissonance.
Degree of cognitive dissonance =
Dissonance can be resolved in different ways:
Example: the corona measures prevent the spread of the virus – corona measures
make my life miserable.
1. The importance of the dissonant cognitions can be reduced: corona measures
prevent the spread of the virus, but maybe te virus should be allowed to spread a little bit.
2. Dissonant cognitions can be changed: I don’t believe corona measures help to
prevent the spread of the virus.
3. Consonant cognitions can be added: corona measures give governments control over
their populations; the media are trying tos care us; the virus is not so dangerous.
4. Importance of consonant cognitions can be increased: freedom.
Cognitive dissonance has different areas of application:
(1) Decision making: choice behavior/rationalization
Dissonance is a post-decision phenomenon: happens after you have made a
decision.
The more similar the alternatives, the more dissonance you experience.
Dissonance is greatest just after the choice.
Dissonance can be reduced after decision making by ‘spreading of alternatives’:
evaluating the alternative more negatively and the chosen option more positively.
(2) Mass communication: selective exposure
Selective exposure hypothesis:
- People seek information that confirms their attitudes.
- People avoid information that contradicts their attitudes.
- Klapper (1960): minimal effects of mass media through selective exposure?
Selective exposure may subsequently determine attitudes and behavior.
Sweeney & Gruber (research to Watergate and Nixon vs. McGovern supporters.
(3) Marketing: induced compliance
, Marketing en Persuasieve Communicatie
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959): what happens to a person’s attitude if that person has
to engage in behavior that goes against this attitude?
Participants perform a very tedious/boring task. 1/3 gets $1, 1/3 gets $20 to explain to
others that the job is a lot of fun, and 1/3 doesn’t have to.
Result: paticipants in the $1 condition begin to rate the task more positively (attitude
change).
Explanation: $20 is a better excuse to lie than $1, $1 causes more dissonance, that
has to be reduced (negative reward effect).
Conclusion: the less justification provided for performing the counter-attitudinal
behavior, the more dissonance and the more attitude change.
Initiation: persons who undergo an unpleasant initiation to become members of a
group increase their liking fort he group; they find the group more attractive than do
persons who become members without going through a severe initiation.
Marketing: making products expensive and difficult to obtain on purpose.
(4) Business, policy: sunk costs
Sunk costs are costs that has been made and cannot be recovered.
Gambling on horses: right after placing the bet, people overestimate chances of
winning (more than before). The idea that money was wrongly invested creates
dissonance.
Throwing bad money after good money (Concorde effect). This often happens with
infrastructural projects. People stick to loss-making stocks, because it has cost them
so much in the first place.
(5) Sex education & Hypocrisy induction
Stone et al., 1994: Safe Sex Information.
- 2 groups of students: (1) hypocrisy condition: speech about reasons for unsafe sex,
(2) control condition. Dependent variable: purchase of condoms. Dissonance was
created after a proattitudinal advocacy by inducing hypocrisy – having subjects
publicly advocate the importance of safe sex and then systematically making the
subjects mindful of their own past failures to use condoms.
- Results: students bought more often, and more condoms in the hypocrisy condition.
Hoorcollege 4: Attitudes and behavior
The goal of persuasive communication is to change attitudes and behavior. Does attitude
change lead to behavioral change? If we know why people have certain attitudes (functions
of attitudes), we can more easily influence their behavior. Persuaders have to match the
message to the function of the attitude people hold.
Voluntary service (Clary et al., 1994): people
had different attitude functions with regard to
voluntary service:
Knowledge: learning skills
Instrumental: prestige
Value-expressive: helping others
Ego-defensive: feeling good about yourself
Students first stated importance of the above reasons.
Independent variable: matched/mismatched video with persuasive message.
Dependent variable: intention to volunteer.
According to older scholars, attitudes do not predict behavior. An example for this is the
study by LaPiere with the Chinese people: Chinese people called a restaurant with the
question if Chinese people were welcome there. The restaurant workers said they were not
